E Toll

Where do you stand on the e toll debate, or more importantly, are you going to get one? It can be said that the toll roads are very well maintained. The problem that I have with the e tolls is that most of that money coming in is going to an overseas company. I think I am going to wait and see.

I suspect that access to roads is a basic human right. There is no excuse for any government - since they insist on being there in the first place - not to maintain the roads. What else do we get for the money that the government so adroitly milks us for anyway? We should at the very least be getting long, properly maintained stretches of tar for free.

I wasn't aware that most of the income generated by the toll roads trickles away to outsiders! Grrr. What on earth is so complicated about a toll road to justify foreign expertise? It's just a bloody boom and a till for crying out loud.

I suspect that access to roads is a basic human right. There is no excuse for any government - since they insist on being there in the first place - not to maintain the roads. What else do we get for the money that the government so adroitly milks us for anyway? We should at the very least be getting long, properly maintained stretches of tar for free.

I wasn't aware that most of the income generated by the toll roads trickles away to outsiders! Grrr. What on earth is so complicated about a toll road to justify foreign expertise? It's just a bloody boom and a till for crying out loud.

Rigil

It is a foreign company that the gantries belong to - I suppose the technology and what not to read your car's registration plate and or the e-tag. Something like 60 sent out of every Rand will go to them. If it was 10 sent or so one could maybe justify it but 60? I think the person/s pushing this idea is probably getting a fat handshake from said company. Maybe I am just a conspiracy theorist here but somebody is going to have a better bank balance because of this and it ain't going to be me.

The whole e-tolling mess is premised on scare- and intimidation tactics by SANRAL in cahoots with Gauteng local authorities and a few highly placed transport department crooks. Their campaign consists of “Get an e-tag or you’ll pay up to three times as much through postal billing (while we still rake in the bucks).”

We’d rather give that money to OUTA while there’s hope that it can be thwarted, however faint that hope may be. Unfortunately, the ConCourt can only rule on the question of whether there was adequate public consultation before the project commenced. It cannot rule on whether e-tolling is Constitutional or not because that’s not a Constitutional question; it’s a question of how public funds are spent, which the High Court already (and predictably!) ruled on against OUTA.

BTW, I think SANRAL and the transport ministry’s talking heads are quite deliberately overstating how many people have already bought e-tags as a ploy to get more people to follow suit. The worst scenario for them would be an unanticipated billing nightmare where they have to despatch several hundred thousand printed invoices every month, many of which simply won’t be paid. So much easier to reach electronically into prepaid accounts or, even better, automatically into your bank account as needed.

And if e-tolling succeeds in Gauteng, do not for one moment think that such a precedent won’t be maximally milked to impose the same shameful exploitation everywhere else in the country eventually, only with greater assurance, swagger and weight. Non-Gauteng residents would therefore do well to lend their weight in resisting this bloodsucking bane.

I wouldn't mind toll roads in principle. But we are already heavily taxed, specifically to maintain roads. So they're mismanaging the moeny.

The key here is that the money is not going into a "road fund", but a shared govt. coffer that is also (iow almost exlusively) funding social grants, acc. to a couple of economists I've heard talk on the issue. Result being there is no money to do the work we're paying for. Govt seems to be of the opinion that this situation is all "the users'" fault, and hence we should be made to pay again for something we already pay for, to foreigners.

What drives my mind into a tizzy is how they now claim it is "not fair" that Gauteng has it's roads paid for by "taxes collected from the rest of SA". Uh, Gauteng is a tiny little province that collects 40% (I looked it up a while ago) of all taxes in SA. IMHO we are subsidizing the rest, not vice versa!

The twist in the blade here is that the ANC claims to be all about the poor and destitute. But let's be reallly honest here, to upper-middle class Joburg dwellers this will be a bit painful, we'll be shelling out a bit more for goods, a bit more to drive our Benzes to golf clubs, but not nearly as painful as it's going to be for Joe day-labourer who will now literally have to eat less food.

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, this is the crucible on which the future of SA rests. I think if this goes forward with any degree of success the govt. will have proven they can do anything they want despite universal opposition. This cannot stand, I refuse to pay a cent. This is truly a test of willpower and I will be filled with glee if there's universal non-compliance.

As for there already being lots of e-tags out there, this is true. However what they neglect to mention is that there's already been a (also hugely contested at the time) tolling operation running on the N1 north of Stormvoël Rd. in Pretoria for years now that uses them.

Ha I live in the free part of the country, ie the Western Cape, so does not worry me.

The N1 and N2 from Paarl & Somerset West to CT are next on the list...

We will fight them in the streets. Those highways are mostly provisional from the R300.

And they not that busy before that, so there is very little argument forthem to improve them in any way more and charge etolls

Maybe they should use some of the money to FINISH THE R300! Why are there so many unfinished roads in this ridiculous city? All traffic arriving from the east destined for the south peninsula must either stay on the N2 towards the city then take the M5 or M3 (about 15k further than the direct route), or take Baden-Powell (when it hasn't got sand on it), or dog-leg through the suburban streets of Mitchell's Plain, then through suburban Muizenberg to get to Ou Kaapse Weg. Heavy vehicles that won't fit under the railway bridge at Atlantic Avenue will usually try, anyway, and get stuck, or take Albertyn Road--a narrow residential street completely unsuited to heavy vehicles.

This is yet more of the previously-mentioned scare- and intimidation tactics they shamelessly deploy. They’ll have a real time of it, setting up the necessary infrastructure and processes, given how thinly stretched our legal system already is. As said before, “The worst scenario for them would be an unanticipated billing nightmare where they have to despatch several hundred thousand printed invoices every month, many of which simply won’t be paid.” They just won’t be able to cope with the volumes. The general public needs to realise this clearly and take a stand accordingly. A related situation occurred recently when the traffic authorities were effectively forced to scrap some nine million unpaid RTMC/AARTO fines in Gauteng.

A related situation occurred recently when the traffic authorities were effectively forced to scrap some nine million unpaid RTMC/AARTO fines in Gauteng.

They've done this a number of times already. However this is mostly because the fines were issued in contravention of the law, either the camera's weren't legal, or calibrated, or they were in non-"registered" places, or the fines weren't sent via registered post, etc...

In the case of e-tolls, the govt seems keen on passing any bill they need to make it legal. By hook or by crook.